


My Avatar Has Got Nothing On Me

by merle_p



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen, M/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Siblings, Undead, Yuletide, Yuletide Treat, Zombiephobic language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-24 00:24:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2561228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merle_p/pseuds/merle_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or: The one where Jemima Walker unwillingly saves her brother's boyfriend and somehow acquires a friend in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Avatar Has Got Nothing On Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sassafrasx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sassafrasx/gifts).



> Hi sassafrasx! You said in your yuletide letter you might like Jem-centric fic, so have a yuletide treat featuring Jemima Walker dealing with some stuff and generally being awesome!  
> I hope you like it! I inferred from your letter that you aren't fundamentally opposed to Kieren/Simon, so I hope it's okay that there's a bit of that going on in the background as well.

Bugger. 

It's been five days since she pulled a gun on her own brother, even less since she's admitted to herself that she seriously needs help, and here she is, pointing her weapon at yet another ro – PDS – _undead_ person. Fuck. 

Although, to be fair, Jem is quite certain that this time, it's really not her fault. 

In fact, she isn't even supposed to be here. Wouldn't be here, if her parents weren't still so freaked out over Kieren's unfortunate encounter with Blue Oblivion that they are channelling all their guilt and self-doubt into overprotectiveness. When he isn't yet home at 8 o'clock from walking Simon back to the bungalow after the funeral, and his mobile keeps going to voicemail, they begin to quietly work themselves into a state of panic until she gives in and offers to go investigate. 

To be honest, she suspects that Kieren is simply too busy sucking face with his new zombie boyfriend to pick up his phone. It's what she would be doing right now, if her own boyfriend hadn't turned out to be a bloody tosser who thought it would be fun to turn his girlfriend's brother rabid and set him loose on the entire town. But she thinks it might be better not to mention that to her parents at this point. Besides, it gives her an excuse to escape their fretting, at least for a little while. 

The fact that she pockets her gun before she heads out is just – a precaution. Old habit. 

Reflex. 

 

The lights are on behind the curtains when she walks up to Amy's bungalow in the dark, and when she tries the door, she finds it unlocked. She pauses for a moment, hand on the doorknob, and decides that a little embarrassment over being caught snogging serves Kieren right for worrying their parents. She pushes the door open quietly, and thinks she can always claim that she knocked if he actually gets mad. 

She closes the door behind herself softly, and stops in the hallway to listen. There are voices floating over from the room to her right – the living room, she assumes –, but the longer she listens, the less it sounds like two lovebirds cooing at each other. She frowns. In fact, she cannot make out Kieren's voice at all. 

"Don't do this," someone says urgently, and she stiffens when she recognizes Simon. His voice is sort of difficult to forget, even if they have barely exchanged two full sentences so far. 

"Actions have consequences," another man says, and Jem can hear the contempt in his voice. This is not a social call, then. "You were given a mission to fulfill, and you failed. You betrayed the prophet, because you got distracted by a silly pretty boy's face."

Jem holds her breath. There is a long silence in the other room, and this more than anything convinces her that Kieren really is not here. She can't imagine that he would just sit there and let a comment like this one slide. 

She grinds her teeth. This is her cue to leave – she came to look for her brother, and Kieren is not here. She did her job; she should go and leave the two zombies to deal with their disagreement on their own. 

Except. _Shit._

She reaches for her weapon, and the familiar feel of the gun grip under her fingers steadies her. She switches off the safety, and lets the colt lead the way as she slowly, quietly sneaks down the hallway. 

"But the prophet shows mercy to those who repent," the stranger continues, and Jem shakes her head at herself. Who is this guy? This is worse than the rubbish Vicar Oddie used to spout. "He is willing to let you go unpunished. You just need to tell us who it is. Who is the First Risen really?"

There is another moment of silence, just as Jem reaches the living room door. She leans her back against the wall and forces herself to breathe. It will be fine. Everything will be fine. As long as she can manage not to pee her pants again. 

"I told you, Julian," Simon says. "She is dead. Maxine Martin stabbed her with a pair of scissors. There is no second rising."

"That's what I was afraid you would say," the other man says, and this seems as good an invitation to move as any. 

"Stay where you are." Her voice is shaking quietly, but the hand holding the gun is steady as she points it at the two men she can make out in the room. Christ. She has no idea what's going on here, but one thing she is sure of: Simon really needs to find better friends. 

Her brother's boyfriend is kneeling on the floor, his hands behind his back – from where she stands, it looks like someone has tied them together. He is still wearing the suit he wore at the funeral, although it is considerably more rumpled and dirty. The second man is standing over him, holding what looks a lot like an enormous meat cleaver, and judging from his appearance, he isn't planning to use it for food preparation any time soon. 

They both look slightly shell-shocked at her entrance. Or at least, that's what she thinks they do, because she tries not to focus on their faces for too long. If she lets herself look at their eyes … She shakes her head quickly, and her gaze settles on the guy with the knife, fixated firmly on a point in the vicinity of his chin. 

"Who is this?" Julian-The-Rotting-Butcher asks, looking down at Simon with an unhappy frown. "Do you know her?"

Simon is staring up at her from the floor, and she cannot – she cannot look at him, but from the corner of her eye, she sees him shake his head slowly. 

"No," he says quietly. "I have never seen her before."

Jem is surprised by how much that hurts. Granted, she probably did not leave a particularly good impression last time she and Simon sat down at the same table, but that he wouldn't remember her at all? Then her brain catches on and she sighs inwardly: Really, she is surrounded by self-sacrificing idiots. 

The other bloke gives Simon a hard stare, then he narrows his eyes at her. "This matter is of no concern to the living," he says. She cannot quite figure out if he is trying to sound polite, or threatening. Possibly both. 

"No concern to the living?" She almost rolls her eyes. "You are completely off your trolley, aren't you? Maybe try speaking normal English for once, will you?"

Julian-The-Butcher actually blinks at her. "My apologies," he says after a moment, his voice turned distinctly frosty. "You need me to spell it out for you? This is none of your business. You need to leave." 

Somehow, his tone is what does the trick. He is so condescending, so self-righteous – fuck, didn't she just ditch a guy who was constantly trying to tell her what to do? All of a sudden, she feels utterly calm. It's the same feeling that used to overcome her during the rising, when she was watching a rotter approach her, waiting for him to come close enough so that she wouldn't miss his brain when she pulled the trigger. She has entered the space where nothing can touch her, nothing can hurt her. She is functioning, she is efficient. 

Nothing else matters. 

"I wish I could," she says, and is surprised at how steady she sounds. "Really, I do. But unfortunately, the guy you are threatening with a kitchen knife here is bonking my brother. So in a way, that does make him my business." 

She pauses for dramatic effect. "If anyone is going to deal with him, it's going to be me."

Dispassionately, she watches Simon close his eyes at her words. She watches the other bloke gaze at her speculatively, moving the cleaver from one hand to the other, as if he's trying to decide whether he can take her. 

"If I were you," she continues, "I would put down your knife, leave quietly, and never come back. How is it that people still haven't caught on that your sort isn't welcome in Roarton?" She takes in his calculating look. "And don't think I won't shoot you in the head right here and now if I have to," she says, even though the words feel like clay in her mouth. "Medicated or not. I've done it before, and I have no problem doing it again." 

There is a long moment when no one moves – it's like when she hits pause on her video game because she knows the next part is going to be particularly hard. God, she hopes, she prays, that this is not going to be anything like her game, where she'll hit play, push open a door and blow up the first undead coming her way. What is she going to do if Julian refuses? For a moment, she has a flashback of looking down at Henry Lonsdale's white face, his forehead pierced by the impact of her bullet. Despite her words, she is not sure if she can do it again. 

Then the man does something complicated with his face, and sets the meat cleaver down on the living table, his movements careful and controlled. 

"Don’t think this is over," he spits, looking at Simon. "The undead prophet will demand answers."

Simon lowers his head and stays silent. 

"Yeah, well," Jem says impatiently, because she really, really wants this to be over. "Your rotting prophet will need to find his answers elsewhere."

She waves her gun, and to her relief, Julian actually heads for the door. She follows him into the hallway, makes sure to watch him take off down the road, and, with a sigh, locks the door behind him. 

When she gets back to the living room, Simon is in the spot she left him in, staring up at her, eyes wide and unblinking in his chalk-white face. Suddenly, she cannot seem to look away. His pupils are tiny pinheads, tilted up in an odd way, as if his eyes had rolled back in his head when he – 

She must have made a noise, or a movement, something to give her away, because Simon flinches and recoils. She remembers that she is still holding the colt, and all of a sudden, she realizes that Simon is actually scared of her. That he is wondering whether this is the moment where she blows off his face. 

It's too much. 

"I need to –" she gasps, "I have to –" The gun clatters to the floor, stupid, stupid, she can't even remember if she switched the safety back on, but she cannot think about this right now. She bolts, flees into the hallway, frantically starts to open doors at random. The second one she tries is the bathroom. She barely takes the time to close the door before her shaking fingers start working on her zipper, and then she is squatting over the toilet and finally lets go, peeing and shaking and crying, all at the same time. There is no toilet paper ( _men_ , she thinks automatically, and then: _no, zombies_ ), so she wipes her nose on the sleeve of her jumper when it starts dripping. 

It takes her a long time to calm down enough to stand on wobbly legs. She flushes, runs water over her hands, her face, lets herself take a look at the mirror. I look like a rotter, she thinks, and pushes down on the hysterical laughter that bubbles up in her chest. 

Simon has managed to free himself from his bonds by the time she hesitantly walks back into the room, but he has made no attempt to pick up any of the weapons. So at least her panic attack must have convinced him that she's probably not a threat. He sits on the sofa, slumped forward, elbows on his knees, head bent, but he looks up at her with an odd expression when she enters. 

"Are you all right?" he asks, and of all the things she expected him to say, this was not one of them. 

She swallows. "I'm not sure," she says, in a sudden bout of honesty, and he nods, as if that is a perfectly acceptable answer. He gestures at the chair in the corner, and after staring at it for what feels like minutes, she brings herself to sit down. 

For a while, neither of them speaks, and Jem is grateful for Simon's silence. She focuses on her breathing, tries to force the shuddering exhales into something more even, and her hands have just stopped shaking when she is hit by a renewed surge of panic. 

"Oh my god, Kieren!" she says frantically. "God, is Kieren all right?"

Simon's head has come up at her panicked exclamation, but he nods firmly, even before she has finished her sentence. 

"He didn't come inside," he says, reassuringly. "He wanted to go for a walk. He wasn't here –" He pauses, stares at her as the realization really sinks in. "Christ," he says, "Christ, if Kieren -"

"What about me?" someone asks, and it actually takes Jem a second to realize that she isn't the one who said it. 

Simon takes in a sharp breath that she is pretty sure he doesn't need. Her head whips around, and of course – there is Kieren, standing in the door to the living room in his oversized jacket, holding a house key in one hand, looking at them in confusion, and with more than a little bit of suspicion.

"What are you doing here?" she asks, and he raises his brows. 

"What – I took the long way home, and by the time I got back, Mum and Dad told me that they'd sent you after me, and then they started worrying about you, because you'd been gone for so long, and so I said I'd go back and look for you. What are _you_ doing here?"

"Kieren –" Simon starts, softly, but Kieren's eyes are already skimming the room, and Jem can tell the exact moment his eyes come to fall on the meat cleaver. 

Bugger, indeed. 

 

"You should have told me," Kieren is saying, miserably, when Jem returns to the living room. 

She'd gone to the kitchen, at some point, to call their parents from her mobile. Yes, everything was fine. Yes, they'd just missed each other. No, they'd all be staying over at Simon's tonight – because he's lonely, that's why. And no, they would not be getting drunk – Mum, you do realize that Kieren _can't_ get drunk, right? 

When she hangs up, she feels that she really cannot go back in there, at least not right away, not with the way her head is spinning. So this fucking Julian told Simon to kill Kieren, and Simon decided to save him instead, and then confessed to Kieren what he had been ordered to do. Apparently all this actually happened, and she didn't have the slightest clue. And Kieren had taken it all in stride, in between turning rabid, losing his friend and then burying her – except apparently Simon's omission of the minor detail that he had turned himself into the ULA's next target was the last straw, and now he was quietly having a nervous breakdown in the living room. 

On an impulse, she starts going through the kitchen cabinets at random. They all turn out to be depressingly, but unsurprisingly empty – except for a pot full of mysterious dark liquid in the fridge (she is not even going to ask) and, to her delight, a lone can of beer at the bottom of one of the cupboards. It's warm, of course, but she doesn't even care – she fucking deserves this beer after the way her night has been going. 

When she finally goes back, Simon has managed to convince Kieren to sit down – a miracle on its own –, and she pauses in the doorway to watch them, taking sips of her disgustingly warm beer. They are not touching, not even trying to cross the space between them, and Kieren is clearly unhappy, tense and jittery. But there is something in the way they are leaning toward each other, the way they are focused on each other, that makes it look like they are sitting closer than they actually are. 

"I didn't want you to worry," Simon says, and he doesn't look any more cheerful than Kieren does. "I was going to handle it."

"What," Kieren retorts, "by sitting there and letting them cut you into pieces?"

"Well, what would you have me do?" Simon asks, spreading his fingers wide. "Tell them that when I said I had found the First, I thought it was you?"

"Yes," Kieren hisses, then, more subdued: "No. I don't know." He pulls up his shoulders. "What are we going to do now?"

"Perhaps it's time for Paris," Jem says. She sets the beer can on the next empty chair without much care. She is not going to finish it. 

They both look up as if startled. Did they really forget she was here?

"Paris," Kieren repeats blankly, as if he's hearing the word for the first time. 

"Well, you've been wanting to go, haven't you?" she says. "You could go together. Just for a bit. Until things have calmed down around here."

"Do you really think Mum and Dad would let me leave now?" Kieren asks. "They did send you to look for me when I wasn't back home in time for dinner."

"Just tell them – I don't know," she says, "that you deserve some time away together. Like a honeymoon."

"Honeymoon." They both look at her with such horrified expressions that she'd laugh if she had the energy left. 

"Well, you know – alone time, a romantic getaway, whatever you people call it these days."

Kieren tilts his head thoughtfully. "I guess at least if I put it that way, Mum and Dad would be too embarrassed to ask further questions."

She snorts. For a moment, they grin at each other, faintly. 

"I thought you wanted to stay in Roarton," Simon finally says. He sounds hesitant, but Jem cannot figure out what's going on in his head. 

"I did," Kieren says. "That was before I realized that the ULA is trying to kill you because you refused to kill me."

Simon looks away, stares at his hands, and all of a sudden, she feels something like pity for him. She knows exactly what it feels like to be at the receiving end of Kieren's reproachful stare. 

"You don't have to decide anything right now," she says quickly. "Just think about it, okay? We can talk about it tomorrow." She yawns, only half-faking it. "It's been sort of a long day."

"Right." Simon looks up at that, suddenly full of nervous energy. "Right. I can – do you want – I can set up Amy's bedroom for you? Change – put fresh sheets on the bed? Or if you'd rather …" He trails off, clearly at a loss for words. Jem gets the impression that he is trying to be a good host, but has no idea what he is doing. 

Amy's bedroom. She tries to imagine it. The bed – until a few days ago, a dead person was sleeping in that bed. If what she's heard about Philip and Amy is true, a dead person was having sex in that bed. Fuck. A dead person is having sex with her brother. And her brother is – 

"All right," she says, before she can lose her nerve. It'll be fine. It's no problem at all. "Amy's bedroom is – that's great."

Simon nods, obviously relieved, and rises quickly. "Good," he says, and points awkwardly at the door. "I'm just going to go and …" He leaves, presumably to fetch fresh sheets from the closet, or maybe simply to freak out in private. 

The moment he is gone, Kieren slumps back against the sofa. "Fuck," he says, with passion. He turns his head to squint at her. "Are you all right?"

She shrugs. She isn't sure what to tell him. "You?" she asks instead.

"No," he says. "God, no." He jerks up, stares at her. "Christ, Jem, if you hadn't been here … "

She shakes his head to stop him. She does not want to hear it. "Not a big deal," she says, but Kieren is not so easily distracted. 

"No," he says. "You don't understand. I can't – I simply can't lose anyone else I –" He swallows – "anyone else I care about. I can't."

"Don't make this about Rick, Kier," Jem hears herself say before she even realizes she was going to say something. "It's not fair on Simon."

"What?" He stares, with that raw look he always gets when someone mentions Rick's name. She knows it's cruel to continue, but she cannot stop now. 

"Look, I can see what you're thinking: You think history is repeating itself or some rubbish like that, because this is the second boyfriend who's been told to kill you and can't bring himself to do it, and –" Huh. Now that she thinks about it, there are some similarities. But. "Jesus, Kieren, it's awful he died, no one deserves what happened to him, and I know you miss him. But you know, just as you blame yourself for getting him killed – I blamed him for getting you killed first."

"No," Kieren protests, hastily. "No, Jem, he didn't …"

"No?" she snaps. She is getting angry, just thinking about it. "Wasn't that what he did when he ran off to Afghanistan, just to get away from you, because he couldn't take the pressure anymore? Don't you think we knew that it had something to do with him, when you – when you left? Christ, Kieren, you slit your wrists in a cave that was covered in love declarations and shit."

"Jem …" Kieren says, weakly. He looks guilty and upset. 

"I used to eavesdrop, you know. I mean, I was fourteen, my brother having a boy over was like the most exciting thing in my life. So I'd listen in on you snogging, and then he'd be: My dad can never find out about this, and then he'd leave and you'd be moping for the rest of the day, and I just – I hated him for making you so sad. You never – you never would have got your happy ending with him, Kieren."

"Jem –" Kieren tries, but she needs to get this out.

"He never would have been comfortable with it. You know that. But – you could have that with Simon, I think. He won't run."

"How do you know that?" Kieren asks, a challenging tone in his voice, as if he is trying to call her out on her shit and at the same time desperately wanting for her to be right about this. 

She shrugs. "He sat through a lunch with the family and Gary, for Christ's sake," she says. "Now that's devotion."

Kieren looks down at his hands, and Jem is fairly certain that if he could, he would be blushing right now. It hits her right then that she is never going to see her brother blush again. 

Then there's a noise behind her, and she whirls around in alarm, still on edge. Simon is leaning in the door, looking down at them with this odd expression, and – fuck. She figures it's probably a bit rude to talk about someone's first love in front of their current significant other. 

Simon doesn't seem too upset about it, though. Instead he just raises his brows at her and sweeps his arm out toward the hallway like he's that bloody queer butler on _Downton Abbey_. 

"Your room is ready, Jemima."

She leans forward to pat Kieren's knee briefly before she gets up. She picks up her gun, and stuffs it in the back of her trousers – she won't need it tonight, she knows ( _hopes_ ), but you can't just leave firearms lying around, now, can you? "Good night, Kier," she says, and he almost-smiles at her in return. 

Simon waits for her patiently and then walks her across the hallway to the second bedroom, as if there was any chance she'd get lost in this wee fucking bungalow. 

"Thank you," he says, and she turns around to look at him.

"What for?" she asks, confused, and he spreads his arms out in a helpless gesture.

"A lot of things," he says, very seriously. "Being there for Kieren, for one thing. Saving my life, for another."

She isn't too out of it to notice his order of priorities. She isn't quite sure how that makes her feel.

"Well," she shrugs, feeling embarrassed and out of her depth. "You know, I would really like to yell at you for even thinking about killing my brother, but I don't think I'm in a position to judge."

At that, Simon – well, he doesn't laugh, precisely. But he makes this noise, like a snort, as if he thinks he shouldn't laugh or doesn't want to but can't help it. His mouth shifts into a grin, half-apologetic, but sincerely amused, and suddenly, Jem thinks she begins to understand why her brother might fancy this bloke. Even if he's still fucking weird.

She is so thrown by that thought that she cannot do anything but step through the door to Amy's bedroom he has just opened for her, and say stiffly: "Well – good night, then."

"Good night, Jemima," he says, and Christ. She really needs to tell him to stop that. God, not one but her parents really calls her that anymore. 

The door closes behind her, and she slumps against the wood with a deep exhale. She takes in the room in front of her and is taken aback by the cheerfulness of it. This is not what she expected – she isn't quite sure what she imagined, but certainly not something this frilly and pink. If she'd thought about it, she probably would have expected it to be more like – well, her own room, really, and she almost laughs at the irony. But this room? This room looks like it belongs someone happy, someone friendly, someone utterly _alive_ , and the thought is so painful that she feels tears pooling in her eyes again. 

"I'm sorry, Amy," she whispers. "Christ, I'm sorry." 

She furiously wipes at her face with her sleeve and is just about to step away from the door when she hears Kieren and Simon's voices in the hallway. 

"I could –" she thinks she hears Kieren saying softly, and presses her ear against the wood. "I could sleep on the sofa."

Simon makes that funny noise again. "Kieren," he says, and his voice is gentle, and maybe a tiny bit teasing, too. "Do you _want_ to sleep on the sofa?"

"I –" Kieren says, sounding awkward and embarrassed, and Jem can't help but roll her eyes: It's so like her brother to have people dedicating their lives to him before he's even put out at least once. And here she'd thought they were already intimately – ew, she does not want to be thinking about it. 

"No," Kieren finally says, and his voice is shaking, but he doesn't sound uncertain anymore. "No, I don't want to sleep on the sofa." 

And then she hears nothing, really, only the rustle of clothing and a sliding sound, and then a dull thump, further down the hallway, and she figures she has heard enough. 

She strips down to her underwear and hangs her trousers and jumper over Amy's screen, where they look strangely out of place next to Amy's lacy skirts (and no, she is _not_ going to cry again). 

She switches off the light, then flips back the covers and hesitantly climbs into the bed. She cannot bring herself to lie down, cannot even move, instead she just sits and breathes. The bed doesn't smell like death, nothing even like the faintly dusty scent that Kieren emits since he's come back. It just smells like fresh laundry, like detergent and fabric softener, and she goes practically limp with relief. She lies back carefully, pulls the covers up to her chin, and listens into the night, but the only sounds are a car driving by outside, and the faint noise of the wind. 

She closes her eyes. Kieren will be safe, as long as he has Simon, she thinks. Maybe it's her job, then, to make sure Simon is safe, and the thought doesn't bother her as much as she'd have thought. 

She rolls onto her side, wraps her arms around herself, and prays to anyone who's listening that this will be a night without bad dreams.


End file.
